It's Not Just You
by shippershape
Summary: "You want to talk about it?" Kirsten watches Cameron carefully, his eyes trained on the glass in front of him, hand curling into a fist on the bar. He's been like this all day, moody and quiet, and she thought taking him out for a drink would help, but if anything it's just made things worse. "No," he finally replies, throwing a quick and entirely unconvincing smile her way.
"You want to talk about it?"

Kirsten watches Cameron carefully, his eyes trained on the glass in front of him, hand curling into a fist on the bar. He's been like this all day, moody and quiet, and she thought taking him out for a drink would help, maybe, but if anything it's just made things worse.

"No," he finally replies, throwing a quick and entirely unconvincing smile her way. "Not really."

She's not thinking about how good he looks in the low lighting, green eyes glowing in the soft light, his ridiculous and perfectly coiffed hair bobbing as he shakes his head. She's thinking about the side of him that she saw for the first time yesterday, the anger twisting his face as he lunged for that asshole of a lawyer. He's been in conflicts before, terrified but standing steady before the whole thing where his heart stopped, then, after, reckless and full of bravado, like the time he got them both tazed by a security guard. But this time he'd been walking toward a fight with venom in his eyes and veins standing out in his neck and-

Well, Kirsten didn't even know he was capable of that kind of bitterness. She's not sure which way that swings her new nebulous attraction to the scientist. It makes him a little more human, knowing that he feels the same dark rage that she sometimes worries will come to define her. But it also makes her wonder if she doesn't know him as well as she thinks. She never knew about his father. She never asked.

"I-" She hesitates. "I though you had plans with Nina tonight." She's trying to be gentle, and the truth is she doesn't want him to go, not when there's this raw and tense intimacy settling so hesitantly between them, but he's been happy lately. And since Kirsten knows that's largely due to his new girlfriend, she can't in good conscience let him mess it up just because she misses him. He shrugs, fingers wrapping around his glass, swirling the amber liquid inside.

"I did."

And he's doing that thing, saying something without really saying it. Kirsten is slowly learning to listen for that, for the meaning underneath.

"But you don't anymore."

He just shrugs again.

"I told her about my dad. Yesterday…I realized maybe I shouldn't try to keep it from everyone. Or, at least, my girlfriend. It's a pretty big secret."

That's true. It's a pretty big secret. They have a lot of those.

"Okay." Kirsten frowns. The little time she's spent with his girlfriend has painted a picture of someone sweet, someone understanding. It's hard to imagine Nina blaming Cameron for his father's mistakes. Then again, Kirsten doesn't really know her.

"She said some stuff, and I overreacted, and now she's not talking to me."

"About your dad?"

"Sort of." He lifts the glass to his lips, pauses, then tilts back a mouthful, wincing as it burns it's way down.

"Have you tried apologizing?" And maybe it's ironic, her suggesting that given her questionable and very short history with apologies, but he just looks over at her, eyes tired and dull.

"I did."

"And?"

He sighs.

"She asked me why I got so mad. And I…I didn't really know what to tell her."

"What did she say? About your father, I mean."

His gaze drops back to the bar, flicking upward briefly when the bald bartender stops to refill his glass. He didn't even ask, but, it's just that kind of night.

"She said I'm not like him. She said…it didn't make her love me any less."

She takes that like a shot of tequila, silently, repressing the urge to grimace.

"Oh. I didn't know you two-"

"We haven't. Or, I guess, we hadn't."

"So," she digests that for a moment. "Isn't that a good thing?"

He snorts.

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" He mumbles, throwing back half of his refreshed drink in one swallow. "A beautiful girl tells me she loves me, one who loves comic books and science fiction and stays up all night with me talking movie trivia. She's perfect for me. And when she said she loved me, I ran. Like, literally ran out of the apartment. _My_ apartment."

Pretending none of this feels like a punch to the gut, like it doesn't wind her at all, Kirsten nods.

"Okay, so what's your problem?"

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it?" He sounds bitter, and jaded, and so much like her, pre-emotions, that it takes her by surprise.

"What did you tell her?"

"I said I don't know why."

"You didn't say it back?"

"No."

Because it would have been a lie. This time, Kirsten hears that, the words under the words. He finishes that drink, and she doesn't say anything, and neither does he. And then he has another drink, and another, and Kirsten herself switches to water after after the second because someone is going to have to pick him up off the floor and take him home at the end of the night. She's not sure how much of this is about Nina, and how much is about his father, but she can't think of anything to say that will actually make him feel better so she just lets him drink and thinks _what am I doing here_?

"You know what she said?"

Kirsten blinks at the sound of his voice. It seems like twenty minutes have gone by since either of them have spoken.

"Um, no, what?"

"She said _'it's because I'm not Kirsten, isn't it?'_ "

She stares at him. His words are just beginning to slur, and he doesn't look quite right, eyes bright and glassy. She shouldn't let him go there, not when she knows he never would if he were sober.

"Cameron-"

"And I'm not stupid, I know I was supposed to say ' _no, that's not it, Kirsten and I are just friends'_." He looks up at her suddenly, with an intensity that makes her feel like she's the one with half a bottle of Jameson running through her veins. "But we're not, are we?"

"I don't-"

"Right," he mutters, waving his glass at the bartender. Kirsten grabs it from him, setting it heavily down on the bar, followed by a few twenties. Enough is enough. "I guess it's just me, isn't it Stretch?"

"I think it's time to get you home," she says softly. "Come on, Cameron." She tugs on his arm.

"I'm not like him, you know." He mumbles, as she guides him to the door, weaving between tables and waitresses and the occasional puddle of spilled liquor.

"I know."

"Except I lied, didn't I?"

She frowns.

"I tricked Nina into thinking I was someone who could love her back." The quiet of the night has her ears ringing a little, and his voice is a little too loud. "-and I knew better, I knew it from day one, but I was just tired, you know? I was tired of being Pining Boy. So maybe I am like him."

Her fingers tighten around his bicep, heart aching. This is her fault, isn't it? All of it.

"You're not."

"Mmm." He just makes a sound of disagreement. She calls them an Uber, because it's too far to walk, and though the driver eyes Cameron suspiciously as they climb in, they make it back to his place intact and vomit free.

She tries not to look when he tugs his shirt over his head, it feels like a violation, in his current state of mind. Because it's not just him. There's something grasping and messy and electric between them, something that Kirsten knows better than to try to call friendship. But she's not even sure she knows how to be half of something like that, and when she said their relationship was too important to lose, she meant it. It's just that now she knows that some things change just because they have to, some things are out of her control.

When his mattress creaks, she turns around, watching him crawl into bed.

"You staying?" He asks, and she knows he doesn't mean it like that, not really, but the part of her that wishes he did is much larger than it used to be.

"I'll take the couch." She idly wonders if he's changed the sheets since the last time Nina was in them.

"Kay." His words are muffled into his pillow. "Night."

"Cameron?" He doesn't answer. She takes that to mean he's finally passed out. "It's not just you." She says softly, knowing he can't hear her. It turns out that this new Kirsten, the one with all the feelings, and the wants, she's kind of a coward. Sliding the door closed behind her, she collapses onto the couch, pulling the throw over herself and shutting her eyes.

She doesn't think she'll be able to sleep, but-

Well, she'll probably never stop being surprised at how _exhausting_ emotions can be.

It's the feeling of being watched that wakes her up, bolting upright on the couch, eyes wide but still unfocused. Her heart stops, for a moment, when she sees someone standing over her. And then she realizes it's Cameron, and she presses a hand to her chest, groaning.

"Don't _do_ that."

He's so still, not speaking, that Kirsten starts to wonder if he's sleepwalking. Then he drops into a crouch, and his face is right in front of hers, pensive and searching and-

He kisses her. It's not tentative, or soft, it's bruising and demanding, and when she gasps in surprise she can still taste the whiskey on his breath. She should push him away, should put him back to bed, should put his happiness above this _thing_ that she wants with every cell in her body as his surprisingly broad hand catches her face and traps it there. She should.

But when has Kirsten ever done the thing she was supposed to?

Instead she closes her eyes, tilting her face to brush her nose across his, leaning back when he pushes forward, both of them falling backward onto the couch. His hands are insistent, almost presumptuous, and there was probably a time when that would annoy her but now she just appreciates the purpose with which they skim along her arms, up her neck, tangling in her hair. It's deliciously rough, something she never would have expected from him, you know, if she happened to have had this dream once or twice before. But then something in the back of her mind begins to bother her, a thought that battles it's way through the fog and the sleep and the hormones.

She puts a hand on his chest, right on top of the scar, and pushes, hard. He's stronger than her, physically, but the movement stops him immediately. And then his lips aren't on hers, his fingers are sliding out of her hair, he's no longer right in front of her, but sitting back on his heels.

She almost expects him to apologize, but he doesn't, not _this_ Cameron, the one who drinks too much and kisses her in the middle of the night and doesn't love Nina. And though she kind of likes this Cameron, even if she finds him a little heartbreaking, she doesn't know who he'll be in the morning, and she's not willing to play Russian Roulette: Morning After edition. Not with him.

"You need to sleep it off," she tells him, and they both look a little surprised when the words come out angry and sour. This all feels a little like being played with, even though she knows he doesn't mean to, knows it's just the whiskey.

"I'm not drunk."

She scoffs, dragging a sweaty palm across her closed eyes, needing just to not look at him for long enough to stop feeling like this.

"Go back to bed Cameron." And she doesn't sound angry anymore, she sounds desperate, because she can't be trusted to be the rational one, not anymore, not about _this_.

He doesn't move.

"You said it wasn't just me." There's nothing subtle about the accusatory tone in his voice, the narrowing of his green eyes. When had he gotten so bold? How had she not noticed how much his death had changed him?

"It's not." She's through with lying to him, at least. There's something about the soft light of dawn that calls for honesty, she thinks. "But you're drunk, Cameron, and I don't want to be your rebound."

His eyes widen, the frustration on his face fading to something else. Surprise, maybe.

"Is that what you think?"

Her fingers curl, nails digging into the skin of her palm.

"Of course that's what I think. You got drunk because you broke up with your girlfriend, and then you kissed me. What else is that supposed to mean?"

Slowly, his expression shifts into something more familiar, soft and sorry and worried. Her gaze drops to her lap, cheeks burning.

"Hey."

She ignores him.

"Stretch, look at me."

She does. It's probably stupid, but she does. He looks so earnest that it makes her chest ache, because _this_ Cameron she knows. She just doesn't know how to reconcile him with the man who just had her pinned to his couch, teeth scraping against her bottom lip.

"Maybe you're right. This was…it was bad timing. And that's on me. But you could never be a rebound. You're-we're bigger than that. You're just…more. You're always going to be more."

The speech is a little broken, a little rough. But it's sincere.

"What about Nina?" She wonders.

He sighs.

"Nina deserves someone who isn't already in love with someone else."

She looks at him some more, just looks, searching for something that would indicate that's not the truth, the whole truth. She comes up empty.

"You should talk to her," Kirsten finally says, because she likes Nina, and she doesn't want to be _that girl_. And then she realizes what she's saying, the choice they're making, the one they can't take back. He nods.

"Okay."

She slides over, making room on the couch beside her. He sits, just far enough that no parts of them are touching. The light streaking in through the window changes as they sit there, from pink, to orange, to gold. When the sounds of the city waking up begin to drift up from the street, Cameron gets up.

"You hungry? I found a recipe for cinnamon brioche French toast that'll knock your socks off."

It's such a Cameron thing to say, she can't help the smile that tugs at her lips. She suspects he's not feeling particularly well right now, running on negligible sleep and probably still a little drunk, but he grins back.

"If I say I love you too," she says carefully, sliding onto one of the stools at his island. "-are you going to run away?"

It's too soon, probably, and definitely inappropriate, but Cameron just fixes her with an even look.

"I'm not going anywhere, Stretch."

That's good, she thinks. Neither is she.


End file.
